The ultimate Doctor Who marathon – 50 years in 50 weeks

Daily Archives: July 2, 2013

First encountered carrying a stuffed Panda called Hi Fi on the planet Mechanus, Steven Taylor was presumed dead. After assisting the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki to escape the Mechanoid City in The Chase, Steven had returned to the City to retrieve Hi Fi just as the Daleks destroyed it. It was great dismay, therefore, that the Doctor and Vicki were confronted by Steven as he stumbled into the Tardis control room before collapsing to the floor. The Tardis had just materialized in 11th Century England however Steven had stowed away in the ship, presumably whilst Vicki and the Doctor were saying their goodbyes to Ian and Barbara on Mechanus. Suffering ill effects from the Dalek blast, Steven assumed that he must have been delirious when he chased after the crew and eventually found the ship.

Vicki, Steven and the stuffed panda, Hi Fi

The spaceship pilot who had spent two years as a prisoner of the Mechanoids was now the Doctor’s latest companion. Notwithstanding his experience with space craft, Steven has clearly not seen a machine as magical as the Tardis before. He doesn’t believe it is a time-machine or that they’ve landed in the 11th Century. The Tardis’s inability to blend into its surroundings, as it was constructed to do, together with the discovery of a modern wrist watch, compounds Steven’s disbelief. Prone to speak his mind, Steven is openly dismissive of Vicki’s assertions about the ship’s capabilities and earns a quick rebuke from the Doctor for calling him “Doc”. Quickly recovering from a state of deep sleep or unconsciousness, Steven shows no ill effects from his previous deprivations on the planet Mechanus. It would not be unfair to assume that a person who had gone two years without human companionship, and has an overt attachment to a stuffed toy, may be suffering some form of psychological distress. Not unlike Vicki, who rapidly regained equilibrium following her trauma on the planet Dido, Steven is promptly able to put the past behind him, leave the panda on a chair, and embrace a new life of adventure with the Doctor.

The Doctor, Steven and the Viking helmet which isn’t a “space helmet for a cow”

The Time Meddler affords the Doctor opportunities aplenty for rollicking laughs and gratuitous violence. Upon alighting from the Tardis the Doctor examines a metal helmet with horns. Steven is less than confident with the Doctor’s assertion that he’s found a Viking helmet. Flabbergasted by his new companion’s response of “maybe” the Doctor replies, “What do you think it is? A space helmet for a cow?” Although absent from episode two (William Hartnell was on holidays) the Doctor is nonetheless seen to douse the monk with a pale of water from inside his cell. Episode three sees him poke a stick into the Monk’s back and pretend it’s a Winchester ’73. He also knocks out a Viking by hiding behind a cell door and jumping out at him.

The Doctor gets an upper hand with the monk

The Time Meddler is a delightful blend of historical drama and science fiction. Hitherto, the historical dramas had been played strictly straight, even if historical accuracy was at times debateable. The Tardis crew’s arrival in the Tardis was the story’s only concession to the sci fi genre. The Time Meddler broke this mould by the insertion of another time traveller into the mix. The monk is from the Doctor’s own planet, although around 50 years after the Doctor. For the first time in Doctor Who we meet another Gallifreyan, although a name is not given to the Doctor’s planet, or his race, until the tenure of the Second Doctor. The monk’s Tardis is in the form of a sarcophagus which the Doctor disparages by claiming it is only sheer luck that the Type 4 machine fits so well into its surroundings. Almost 50 years after the monk’s quip that he couldn’t repair the camouflage unit, or chameleon circuit as it was later to become known, the Doctor’s Tardis still remains in its police box form. The monk’s Tardis is so advanced that it has automatic drift control which permits it to be suspended in space with absolute safety. The Doctor’s banter with the monk about their time machine’s respective features is not unlike a couple of rev heads discussing the relative merits of their cars!

The Vikings discuss their plans

Although the Doctor, and Vicki, maintain that history must never be changed, it’s clear from The Time Meddler that it is nonetheless possible to do. Whilst discussing the consequences of changing history, Vicki advises Steven that a person’s memories would alter the moment time has been rearranged and that history books, which had not yet been written, would be rewritten to reflect the changed history. Why you would need to rewrite a book that had never been written in the first place is a small example of flawed logic. The monk’s diary reveals that he met with Leonardo Da Vinci and discussed the principles of powered flight. He had also deposited two hundred pounds in a London bank in 1968, nipped forward two hundred years and collected a fortune in compound interest. Clearly the monk had never thought of popping forward to find the winning lotto numbers and back again in time to put his numbers in! He alludes to having provided the Britons with an anti-gravitational lift which allowed them to build Stonehenge. The monk’s audacious plan was to rewrite the course of English history by thwarting the Viking invasion. The Doctor is outraged at the monk’s “disgusting exhibition” of a plan and is determined to thwart it. Circumvent it he certainly does, by tying a piece of string around the dimensional control in the monk’s control panel, and once out of his Tardis, gently removing it. The monk’s Tardis then shrinks to a minute size, ruining it completely and preventing him access to it. The monk is stranded indefinitely in 1066.

The monk on the watch out for Vikings

A rollicking good tale, The Time Meddler was the blue print for future quasi historical adventures . The monk would soon meet the Tardis Crew again in the 12 part serial, The Daleks’ Master Plan. Unfortunately that was his last televised adventure.

The “Time Meddler” was originally broadcast in the UK between 3rd July and 24th July 1965

Less than 18 months after their creation, the Daleks made their third appearance as the Doctor’s arch enemies in the six part serial, The Chase. Almost universally panned in fan circles as the worst Dalek story ever, The Chase is not entirely without merit. It is in this story that Ian and Barbara leave the Tardis for the last time and return to 1965 London. Their arrival home in the Daleks’ time travelling ship is one of the most iconic and best remembered segments in Who’s history. The still photography of the teachers playfully posing against a variety of London landmarks joyfully demonstrates their relief to finally return to what passes as normality. How did they explain away their two year absence from Coal Hill School? That’s a mystery that remains unanswered.

Ian and Barbara enjoy London as they pose in front of a real Police Box. Yes, they really did exist!

Prior to their tear jerking departure from the Doctor and Vicki, Ian and Barbara were as close to home as 1966 New York. It was on the Empire State Building, in episode three, that the viewer meets the character of Morton Dill, played by Peter Purves. The viewers and the production team alike were unaware that Purves would reappear in episode six of that same serial as a stranded spaceship pilot on the planet Mechanus, named Steven Taylor. Evidencing the almost complete absence of forward planning in the Doctor Who camp, the decision to appoint a replacement for Ian and Barbara was not made until Purves impressed all concerned during his role as a naive tourist from Alabama. In a period of less than three weeks Purves went from a bit-part extra to a companion-in-waiting. It would not be until the next serial, The Time Meddler, that the character of Steven Taylor would be officially invested into the Tardis Crew. Purves was the first person to have appeared as two separate characters in the same Who serial.

Morton Dill, the dim witted hick from Alabama, investigates a Dalek on the Empire State Building

My 12 year old son considers Peter Purves to be the Doctor’s best companion solely based upon his portrayal of Morton Dill. And he wasn’t even a companion then! My son loves the Alabama imbecile and finds it hard to contain his laughter as he watches Dill’s onscreen antics. Purves’ attempt at an American accent was at least consistent in that episode, unlike the season three story, The Gunfighters, where he occasionally forgets that he’s meant to be from the USA. Moreover, we don’t have to listen to him sing in The Chase!

A Mechanoid. The “next big thing” that wasn’t!

Not surprisingly, The Chase witnesses a number of firsts. There’s the first, and regrettably only, appearance of yet another “next big thing”, the Mechanoids. Their unwieldy size, slowness and limited movement undoubtedly had much to do with this. It was not for want of trying that it took almost another 18 months for Doctor Who to eventually invent a genuine contender to the Dalek popularity stakes, the Cybermen. Another first and last was the Time-and-Space Visualiser, a large disc with television monitor which was taken as a souvenir from the planet Xeros’ Space Museum. Seemingly programmed by punch cards, the Visualiser enabled the Tardis occupants to view any event in history’s past. To demonstrate the machine’s awesome powers the crew were treated to clips from Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address”, William Shakespeare conversing with Queen Elizabeth 1, and most prestigiously for Doctor Who, the Beatles performing in 1965. The Beatles clip was no mere piece of stock footage from the BBC Archives, but a song filmed specifically for Who and also shown on Top of the Pops. The Chase is the first to feature an evil android Doctor. The serial also sees debut of the redesigned Daleks, who at last have their own time machine.

Why is it that The Chase is held in such low regard? The answer would undoubtedly vary from person to person, although the hybrid nature of the story must be a likely cause. There are so many elements thrown in together, with no satisfactory explanation why. The only plot involves the Daleks chasing the Doctor and his crew to various locations throughout the universe. The Doctor is the Daleks ultimate enemy as he thwarted their attempts to commandeer the Earth as a spaceship in The Dalek Invasion of Earth. At least in TheKeys of Marinus the crew were endeavouring to retrieve the lost keys to the Conscience of Marinus, and their adventures encompassed a series of locations and terrains on only one planet. During the course of The Chase the Doctor and his companions are variously in a Haunted House; the Mary Celeste; New York City; and the planets Aridius and Mechanus.

Daleks on the Mary Celeste

Bizarre is a less than adequate word to describe the Tardis Crew’s adventures in the Haunted House in which with a robotic Count Dracula, Frankenstein and Grey Lady reside. One is left wondering why, and whatever was Terry Nation thinking at the time. Nation would also have us believe that Daleks were the cause of the mysterious disappearance of the crew of the British-American merchant ship, the Mary Celeste, in 1872. The Daleks also had a keen interest in New York’s Empire State Building. Had the Twin Towers been built in 1965 then I’m sure Nation would have positioned them there instead. It almost seems as though Nation was giddy on the success of the Daleks and had assumed that viewers were gullible enough to accept anything thrown at them. Clearly the BBC production team agreed, at least at the time.

Frankenstein puts an end to a pesky Dalek

In retrospect, however, such criticism fails to acknowledge the sheer fun of the story. And it’s probably the gaiety of this serial which is the principal reason why The Chase is held in such high disregard. Daleks are meant to be menacing and intimidating. Throw in a mix of comedy interludes and the foreboding in which they are ordinarily met quickly evaporates. Viewers have no need for bothersome distractions of a witty nature. They just want to be terrified, even if by mid 1965 it was plainly obvious that the Doctor and his companions always triumph. The Daleks’ next appearance, in six months time, did not suffer from a similar fate. The highly regarded 12 parter, The Daleks’ Master Plan, gave the audience three solid months of terror and the first time, the death of not only one, but two companions. Hereafter the security of the Tardis Crew could never again be assured.

Dracula and Doctor Who just don’t mix

The Chase was originally broadcast in the UK between 22 May and 26 June 1965

The Chase was released in a Box Set with The Space Museum entitled (you guessed it!) “The Space Museum The Chase”.